Hindsight is always 20-20, but there are lessons to be learned from last Sunday’s Futurity at Belmont that can be applied down the road.

BEWARE MEDIA FAVORITES Previously unbeaten More Than Ready was sent off the 2-5 choice in the Futurity despite four major yellow flags:

1) He came down with a fever and high white blood count at Saratoga – in other words, he got sick – which curtailed his training and knocked him out of his chief goal for the summer, the Hopeful Stakes.

2) Because he got sick and missed the Hopeful, More Than Ready was laid off 52 days between starts, from the July 29 Sanford to the Futurity.

3) He was stretching out from six furlongs, the farthest he’d run before, to a mile. Not a big deal – the other Futurity horses were stretching out, too – unless taken with points 1 and 2.

4) More Than Ready was tackling the most talented, experienced field he’d faced, including two stakes winners and three horses who’d won or placed in allowance events.

So why was More Than Ready pounded to 40 cents on the dollar? Because the media – and you can point the finger of blame here as much as anywhere – had anointed him a superhorse. His 5-for-5 record, including a track-record performance in the Tremont and an electrifying, 93/4-length blowout in the Sanford, made him the best 2-year-old of this decade, we said, and that was enough to overcome the factors that opposing trainers such as Bill Badgett and John Kimmel said made More Than Ready vulnerable.

BEWARE THE SHARP,IMPROVING HORSE Bevo, who paid $24.20 winning the Futurity, was no match for More Than Ready in the June 4 Flash Stakes, when he finished third beaten six lengths. But the Flash was just Bevo’s second start. Since then he won an allowance at Belmont and was coming off a 2-length score in the Saratoga Special over a well-regarded field that included Afternoon Affair and Settlement.

Bevo’s Special was his first race in two months. In the Futurity he was racing back in four weeks with four workouts in between, three of them bullets.

BEWARE 2-YEAR-OLDS WITHEDGE IN DISTANCE EXPERIENCE Only three horses in the Futurity field had raced farther than six furlongs. Bevo, who won the Special at 6; Entrepeneur, a New York-bred who barely hung on to win an allowance at 6; and Greenwood Lake, who rallied from far back to finish third to Entrepeneur in that allowance but who had broken his maiden at Saratoga going seven furlongs, making him the only horse in the race to have run that far.

Greenwood Lake, whose trainer Nick Zito has had success stretching out his 2-year-olds, closed like a rocket to be second in the Futurity, beaten just a neck at 30-1, to complete a $421 exacta.

What will all this mean the next time these youngsters hook up, in the 1 1/16-mile Champagne Stakes at Belmont Oct. 9?

The weaknesses that cost More Than Ready the Futurity will turn into strengths. He was only beaten two necks after pressing a hot (:45.4) pace while racing wide and taking the lead into the stretch. He’ll be going from a mile to 1 1/16 miles, has a much needed race under his belt and will train up to the Champagne without being compromised by a fever. While Bevo and Greenwood Lake should continue to move forward, More Than Ready will improve even more.

But the colt who really figures to take a big step up off the Futurity is fourth-place finisher Chief Seattle, who was beaten just 11/4 lengths despite stumbling at the start, racing greenly and being steadied in deep stretch.

Going into the Futurity, Chief Seattle was a carbon-copy of two other noteworthy 2-year-olds of recent years, Unbridled’s Song and Lil’s Lad. All three broke their maidens in first-out romps sprinting at Saratoga. All were making their second starts in Grade 1 stakes going a distance at Belmont.

Unbridled’s Song, fourth in the Champagne after opening a big early lead through fast fractions, came back in his third start to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Lil’s Lad, who didn’t take to being rated in the Futurity, ran a huge race in the Champagne, his third start, to be second in a photo.

After the Futurity, Chief Seattle’s trainer, John Kimmel, said he wouldn’t trade places with anybody. When More Than Ready and Chief Seattle duke it out to the wire in the Champagne, Kimmel could be right.